Produce 48 followers noticed that contestant Lee Gaeun is receiving an enormous amount of love comments under her videos and articles, and upon investigating found out that she had become a “target” of some extreme male fans of the Japanese contestants.

Lee Gaeun’s videos began to see some nasty comments, which seemed to accumulate a lot of “Likes”, and fans wondered if she had done something controversial on the show.

“It looks like the malicious comments keep winning the “Best Comment” and the likes on these comments are ridiculous. What’s going on?”

— Netizen

It turned out that some viewers decided to target Lee Gaeun and try to bring her down by giving her negative reviews and comments. These haters have shared their successes of sending a mean comment to the top of the list, or becoming banned from the website after terrorizing Lee Gaeun’s videos.

Viewers are fed up with these “trolls” and pointed out they are mainly from the Produce 48 Gallery website, where the user pool is mainly male. The ones attacking Lee Gaeun have been found to be supporters of the Japanese contestants.

- “This is by the Japanese girls’ fans targeting her. Guys love her too because she has a lot of female fans.”

- “This is what the “gallery” users are doing to bring down Lee Gaeun. LOL. Such useless b*stards…”

- “I’m only into boy groups and I don’t watch Produce 48 but I’m going to vote for Lee Gaeun… I can’t believe they think it’s okay to do this to one girl, while they support another. It’s unfair and petty. I’d be heartbroken if some group of losers did this to my bias.”

- “Do they not know PLEDIS Entertainment is known to sue first, then notify…?”

- “I’m honestly so confused about why they love on Lee Gaeun for being on the older side. They love the older Japanese members though. The gallery is filled with posts hoping the older Japanese contestants to win and debut… I mean at this point, you might as well think the gallery users are all from Japan.”

Regardless, Lee Gaeun’s fans continue to support the contestant in her effort to win a spot in the debuting group!

- “KAEUN SLAYED TOO MUCH! My wig was gone

- “FOR THOSE WHO SAID KAEUN IS UNTALENTED, WE NEED TO TALK ”

- “Honestly she is the best person to be the centre and leader. She has the charisma, talent and all-round ability to really make the girl group that debuts excellent. Vote!”

- “I really think she deserves everything. Like she is hardworking and also talented beautiful amazing powerful gorgeous human being and you guys should love her.”

- “This focus cam is bomb”

- “Stfu she’s flawless!!! Look at that energy and power!!! Her experience is busting out! What a pro!”